Farrington looks back on 40 years as chief

Forty years ago this week, residents of what was then the Centerville-Osterville Fire District made a decision that would stick with them for the next 40 years.

TBP

ANSWERING RETIREMENT’S CALL – After 40 years as chief and 48 years on the department, John Farrington is readying for life’s next call.

Retirement planned at end of June

Forty years ago this week, residents of what was then the Centerville-Osterville Fire District made a decision that would stick with them for the next 40 years. They elected John Farrington as their fire chief.

The year 1973 was a good one for long-term chiefs, as newcomer John Palmer Jenkins unseated the incumbent chief in West Barnstable. He went on to serve another 32 years. In Hyannis, an 18-year-old Harold Brunelle was still coming up the ranks. Like Farrington and many of their contemporaries, Brunelle joined his village department’s call force before he could drive.

Farrington said that’s the back story for most of the firefighters of the day. In C-O, the goal was to have 30 call firefighters per village who would respond to incidents on a village basis. There were four full-time positions, three dispatchers and an elected chief.

Farrington’s interest in the fire service came quite naturally. He grew up next to the Osterville station. His father served as a captain on the call force and would run over to go out on calls.

At 18, Barnstable Police Chief Al Hinckley hired him as a “summer special,” and he walked a beat to earn money while attending Northeastern, where he studied criminal justice. When he graduated, having done his coop work on the midnight shift in Barnstable, Hinckley had already added Farrington as a provisional officer while he worked through the Civil Service procedures.

All the while, he remained on the call force, working dispatch every other Sunday. When Chief Al Buckler retired in 1973, the 24-year-old Farrington took a shot.

He’d risen to the rank of call Captain and was the CPR trainer for the entire department.

He was one of five names on the ballot, including two other members of the call force. Needless to say, the support he had from fellow firefighters and his fresh-faced slogan – “The Qualified Candidate” – carried the day. He took more than half of the 2,263 votes cast.

He was one of two John Farringtons on that year’s ballot, the other being John B. Farrington, his father, who was elected first assistant, the call department deputy chief.

“I was still living at home then,” Farrington said, adding with a laugh that it made things easy for coverage.

Farrington was challenged at the polls just once in 1985 before a change in by-laws moved the position from elected to appointed in 1991.

In his four decades, Farrington saw the district formally add Marstons Mills, more than quadruple its population, build four fire stations (Marstons Mills twice), move from an elected to appointed chief and move from a call force of 80 to an appointed staff of 61 (including administration).

Through the 1970s, ’80s and ’90s, Farrington said that most of the permanent staff came from the call ranks, but that necessarily shifted as the call force became smaller and smaller.

At its height, with 30 call members each for the Centerville and Osterville Stations and 20 for Marstons Mills, COMM had 80 people who could respond to an emergency.

In those days, Farrington said they would gather for barbecues, clambakes and other gatherings.

“We had a good bunch of guys,” he said, adding that it’s not the same with the professionalized department and pace of today’s world.

“Everyone’s got so much going on with family and other responsibilities,” he said.

He credits the union with being involved with fundraisers and other community projects, some of which are little heralded outside of the department.

COMM saw the last of its call force in the early 2000s, Farrington said. It was down to two at that point and the decision was made to work with a full-time, permanent staff only.

The move away from a strictly call force came as the district struggled to keep pace with its population’s growing needs.

“We were adding 60 homes a month,” he said of the 1970s building boom.

When he took the reins, the department serviced between 400 and 500 calls a year for its 6,000 resident. Now there’s a year round population of 28,000 (45,000 in the summer) and give or take 4,000 calls annually.

“When the growth exploded, the calls just started going crazy at night,” he recalled.

Farrington believes that’s a good staffing level for now and into the future. While there’s still room to grow, the explosive growth seen in the 1970s and ’80s can’t return. If there’s a rise in the number of emergency calls over the next decade, then perhaps staffing would need to change, but time will be a better judge of that need.

“We're in good shape here,” he said.

Among the most gratifying things? “To watch your people train and then go ahead and watch the training prove out,” Farrington said. “When you have the incidents and everything goes to plan.”

The mix of calls today skews heavily toward medical incidents, with fewer fires than in Farrington’s early days on the department.

“There were a lot of brush fires, car fires and that was before smoke detectors,” he said.

It was also a time when kerosene stoves were still prevalent. “We had people handling live fuel on a regular basis.”

The biggest change in fire activity is a side benefit to a decrease in tobacco use.

“There are fewer people smoking, a lot fewer people smoking,” he said. “That's where we got a lot of fires.”

The increased demand for medical calls and the continued training required for EMT certification also had a hand in the gradual change from a call to permanent department.

“When we first started, we weren't even doing BPs,” Farrington said, explaining that procedures that are now routine were just starting to be adopted by departments.

Farrington has also been with the Cape and Island EMS from the beginning and has gone through 20 or more recertifications of his EMT license.

Other changes? There were no portable radios in either the police or fire departments, so the means of communication were through home units and air horns. He said one of the tough things was having someone monitor the radio when taking a shower or mowing the lawn.

Police officers would turn on the outside speaker to monitor the radio when making a vehicle stop, but would need to return to the vehicle to answer, That was a problem for Officer Farrington, who found himself rolling on the ground after a stop turned into a fight on Old Mill Road.

Contrast that with the near constant and ubiquitous manner in which rescue personnel can communicate on the road and while fighting fires.

Better procedures, training, equipment, medications and capabilities in hospital emergency rooms all represent a better result for those in need.

He credits increased awareness within the population, which is better educated about their own health, for catching and treating heart and health conditions earlier.

Farrington credits Dr. Richard Zelman and the cardiac units he oversees at Cape Cod Hospital with saving lives that would have been lost in the past.

Awareness and changed behaviors has also dramatically reduced the number of smoking-related fires and injuries.

He’s seen the drug of choice change with the times, with cocaine, heroin, bath salts, all presenting their own problems for responders.

“I don't think the general public realizes how many of those we do,” Farrington said.

One can’t spend a single year, let alone more than 40, as part of one of Barnstable’s five fire districts without having an opinion on consolidation. Farrington takes a practical view.

He recognizes and understands the politics of the issue. He said that if there’s going to be a win on all sides, then consolidation will move forward. Until then, issues such as taxation and coverage will remain, and COMM stands to lose more than others in that equation.

COMM covers 26 square miles and includes some of the wealthiest tracts of real estate in Barnstable. The result is a 2013 tax rate of $1.48 per $1,000, a rate that’s between 18 and 74 percent lower than residential rates in other districts.

Farrington said that COMM and the other departments talk and work toward “functional consolidation.”

“We’re all backing each other up,” Farrington said.

He pointed to the March 13 house fire in Hyannisport, which saw Hyannis, COMM, Cotuit, Barnstable, West Barnstable and Yarmouth respond.

“We’ve been very fortunate,” Farrington said of the support the department’s received from voters at annual meetings over the years,

So why retire now? “They’re throwing me out in eight months, anyhow,” he said, referring to his 65th birthday. “It’s a perfect opportunity.”

The COMM Board of Fire Commissioners hired a search company to find the next chief. The initial list is being narrowed to those who’ll be sent for testing, and eventually to a set of three candidates who’ll be interviewed.

It will be a year of transitions for others in the Farrington family. Among the first things up as the chief heads into retirement is his son’s June graduation from Barnstable High School and his daughter’s wedding